Empire
by sf
Summary: PostAC, barreling down the road to the reconstruction of Shinra Company. A Hero, A President, a new world, and all that stands in between. Pairings: TsengRufus, RudeReno, more TBA
1. Chapter 1

**Empire  
**By Elvaron (sf)

An Advent Children fanfiction  
Post-AC, barreling down the road to the reconstruction of Shinra Company. A Hero, A President, a new world, and all that stands in between.

Rating PG-13 - Status: In progress - Warnings: None  
Pairings: Tseng/Rufus, Rude/Reno, more to be announced

Started: October 2, 2005; 2200 hours approx.

**I**

A single lamp flickered unsteadily in the room, providing barely enough illumination for him to read by. Tseng would have nagged, ever concerned about his damaged eyesight. But Tseng wasn't there; nor were the rest of the Turks. Reno and Rude had left just hours ago, taking the company helicopter with them, vanishing off into the night after Tseng and Elena, who had left a day or so earlier.

And so he was alone, except for the reports.

The reports. There was a whole network of Shinra employees out there now, each relaying data and numbers and analyses to the President, even if not a single one of them knew where the President was. The reports went to the Turks, and from the Turks to himself, and his orders went the other way, all without even revealing his location. Direct contact was limited to PHS, all heavily encrypted and typically routed through remote locations to prevent tracing, and even that was typically restricted to a select group and only for emergencies.

It was better that way. Safer. It meant that he could spare all four of his bodyguards instead of requiring one or two hovering over his shoulder at any one time, and it meant that Tseng had one less thing to nag about.

It should have meant that there wouldn't be any one troubling him here in Healin. It should have meant that no one even knew where he was.

But apparently the only two non-Turks to whom he had revealed his location did not have the good graces to respect his privacy.

-

Rufus sighed when the door opened. He had locked it, of course, but the lock was a flimsy affair, and evidently his unwanted and uninvited guest wasn't in the mood to take no as an answer. Heavy footsteps rang across the parquet floor, moving through the living room and headed for his makeshift office. Definitely not any of the Turks, then. Tseng and Elena were quieter, Reno's footsteps faster, and Rude's more deliberate.

The vision in his good eye was swimming from focusing on the tiny letters for too long. Paper was in such dire shortage here that employees had an awful tendency to squeeze as much text onto one sheet as possible, cutting the margins to non-existence and reducing the font size to something better viewed under a microscope. But it was necessary, so—

"Rufus."

"Good evening." He blinked, but did not take his attention away from the report. "I'm afraid that you come at a busy time…"

"Hard at work rebuilding Shinra company?"

A black shape loomed at the other end of his desk, and placed a gentle but firm hand on the piece of paper that he was – that he _had been_ reading. Reluctantly, Rufus set the paper aside and looked up, squinting.

"Cloud-san. How may I help you?"

Cloud Strife had not changed since Rufus had last saw him: decked out in the same black ensemble with the silver wolf's head tacked to one shoulder pad and a red ribbon tied to one arm. His expression was grim, a slight frown gracing his face, as his eyes – _glowing mako eyes_ – bore into Rufus' own. "I will not let you rebuild Shinra."

Rufus found his gaze flicking to the massive Buster Sword strapped to Strife's back, before returning to ex-Soldier's face. He leaned back against his wheelchair, sliding his arms to the armrests, in a position that made it easier to draw the pistol that rested in the belt holster. The gun was a comforting weight against his side, and for the briefest moment he _did_ consider drawing it, and ordering Strife out of the room. But he discarded that thought as quickly as it came; force had not availed him the night of his ascendancy to office; it would certainly not avail him now.

"It will not be the Shinra of old," he said instead, keeping his expression earnest and sincere. "As I said in our previous meeting, we have a large debt to repay the world, and I intend to do so. How, that does require resources, which in turn requires me to rebuild Shinra company."

Strife's scowl only deepened further. "I have no reason to believe you."

"You have no reason to doubt me," Rufus countered.

"I do. Shinra Inc has done nothing but lie to us in the past. Why should it be any different now?"

Rufus tapped his fingers against the armrest, a move calculated to draw Strife's attention to the wheelchair. Let the boy really _notice _it. Let the boy see the difference; let his better sense draw the right conclusions.

"_Everything_ is different now. Diamond Weapon and Meteor made sure of that."

"But you're still Rufus Shinra."

Rufus snorted. "Hardly. The name remains the same, but people change." He chuckled, deprecatingly. "I was young and arrogant and foolish back then. I apologize. You could say I've seen the error of my ways." He rummaged in the stack of files, squinting at the titles, and pulled one out. "Hydroelectric power for the Nibelheim region. Geothermal from the Northern Crater. Wave power for Junon and Costa de Sol, and, of course, solar and wind power. We're looking into alternative energy sources now. There may have to be some fall back on coal in the interim… alternative energy sources are notoriously inefficient, but a great deal better than mako, you'd agree."

"I wasn't talking about mako energy." Strife shoved the file aside. "I was talking about Shinra's world domination."

"Cloud." The fatigue that leaked into his face was not feigned. "Do you remember why Shinra became so powerful?"

"Money," Strife supplied immediately. "And force. You controlled—"

"—Shinra was a _company. _Publicly listed, incorporated, guaranteed by shares. There was no way a mere electric company could gain that much -- excuse the pun, _power_ – unless people allowed it into their lives. And they did. Willingly. With open arms."

"And then you lied to them. Before _killing_ them," Strife growled, clearly losing patience.

Rufus made a tired gesture towards one of the chairs. "Sit down."

"I did not come here to hear your excuses."

"Sit down, _please_."

There was a long silence, before Strife, with obvious reluctance, pulled up a chair. He pulled the Buster Sword from its scabbard across his back before sitting, placing the blade across his knees in a clear gesture of threat. Rufus gave it a slightly disgusted glance. "Ruling by fear?"

Strife had the decency to look slightly abashed. "Coming from someone who quoted that in his inauguration speech?"

"Like I said before, everything has changed." He flicked his fingers at the surroundings. "Shinra no longer has an army. It will not have an army so long as I am President. And I'm quite certain that, should I meet an untimely demise, _you_ will continue to ensure that my successor will not go the way of my father. And without an army, it is hardly possible to rule by fear." He smiled, briefly. "You taught me that much. Fear doesn't take you very far, because there are always people who don't know the meaning of it."

"You still haven't told me why I should believe you."

"I've been trying to tell you." Rufus leaned forward slightly. "Perhaps you fail to understand my situation. I have never had the martial prowess that you have, Cloud. And now, if I were to try and walk across this room unaided, I would fall even before I was half way across. When Diamond Weapon hit my office, a piece of metal the size of your sword lodged itself in my spinal cord. Do you think that, lying in the flaming wreckage of your room, completely blind in the aftermath of the blast and choking on the smoke and on my blood and unable to even crawl for safety… do you not think that that would change a person rather drastically?"

Strife obviously thought that his face was a study in inscrutability. It was quite far from that, actually. Rufus could see him wavering.

"It wasn't the Turks who saved me. It wasn't even any of the top Shinra executives. It was a bunch of junior employees and non-Shinra rescue teams who dug me out of there before I bled to death. It was a husband and wife doctor team that nursed me back to health in a free public hospital, not caring a whit if I couldn't repay them. People who owed me nothing. People who didn't _care_ what my last name was, or what I had done, or what I would do if they put me back on my feet. People who saw another human being suffering and rushed to help out of the goodness of their hearts." _Simple words, Rufus._ _Don't confuse the boy._ _And keep it short._

"But they must have known who you were."

"Of course they did. And yet they chose to save me. They could have well let me die. Would _you_ have let me die?" his gaze sharpened, focused, on Strife's eyes.

Strife looked away. "I…"

Rufus let him squirm in the agony of indecision for a long minute, before speaking again. "I never found out who they were. They may have died in Meteor's fall; I know that they refused to leave their patients and evacuate to safety." _Rather, I know that they're still around and enjoying the sudden anonymous donation of a wealth of Restore materia, but it sounds rather more dramatic this way, don't you think?_ "But I, and Shinra, owe them a debt we cannot repay. I can only hope that, by bringing aid to Midgar, and by working as fast as we can to switch to non-Mako based forms of energy, that we can at least ensure that their sacrifice was not in vain."

He was tempted to sit back, now that the important words and phrases had all been said. But some instinct warned that to move now would be to break the spell that his words had woven, and undo all his hard work in the face of Strife's – _unwarranted and excessive_ – suspicion.

"You… could have used another name, at least," Strife said at last, and only then did Rufus feel himself relaxing, in the knowledge that half the battle was won.

"Would it really have made a difference when people found out that it was Rufus Shinra at the helm of the company anyway?" he smiled gently. "I admit to a certain amount of selfish desire to redeem the Shinra name as well, while I'm getting Planet back on its feet. After all, the only reason why we're actually in a position to help anyone know is because of all the money we made as the old Shinra Inc."

He could almost _see_ a strange thought flicker across Strife's mind, as the other's face darkened abruptly. "But you're firing up Mako reactors! That's the whole reason I came here in the first place. If you were really into alternative energy and all that, you would be abandoning the reactors." Strife's grip on the sword's hilt tightened slightly. Rufus could practically see the word 'You lying bastard' hanging in the air between them.

_Oh brilliant. And he said earlier that he wasn't talking about mako. I should call him on that._ He massaged a temple, feeling one of those mind-splitting headaches coming on. "Have you been back to Midgar recently?"

"Of course. The 7th Heaven is there. Or at the Edge, at least."

"And do you have any power?"

"What?"

"Do you have any _electricity_?" Obligingly, the tiny lamp on his table flickered unsteadily for a few moments, then died completely.

"No, of course not…"

In the sudden darkness of the room, Cloud's pale skin and hair stood out in stark contrast to his black attire. That and the silver gleam of the unsheathed sword across his knees.

"The hospitals need power, Cloud," Rufus said tiredly. "We've survived too long in a society run on electricity to live without it. But right now we're supplying it only to people who desperately need it. Like the hospitals, and secondary sectors that support them. And the transport sector, because they're the ones charged with shipping in supplies and shipping out refugees. And we're supplying that power for free. You'd also be interested to know that we aren't drawing from the Lifestream either. We're using whatever residue processed mako we had stored before Meteor hit, and research indicates that we may be able to use materia." He was speaking almost on autopilot now, his tired eyes glued to Strife's face, watching every expression, every muscle that twitched, every move of those elegant gold eyebrows. The ability to read people had been a skill he had been forced to learn early, necessary as it was to survive in Shinra politics.

"We're in a transition period," he continued, when Strife made no comment. _Stoicism._ _How very typical of him._ "I have people working around the clock to bring wind turbines online, because there's no way solar powered systems could work in Midgar. You know what the weather there is like. But in the meantime, we can't just let people die."

"And using mako that's already been harvested can't deplete the Lifestream any further," Strife said thoughtfully.

_Good boy. Think with your brain, not with your sword_.

His vision chose that moment to go, splintering into a hazy blur that he had to pause and scrub his eyes to restore. He could sense Strife stiffen up again, the moment lost, ruined, careful negotiation coming undone. Once, that would have had him spitting with rage. It would have had his _father_ spitting with rage.

_But Weapon taught you patience, didn't it?_

"We'll be keeping an eye on you," Strife was saying, his voice rekindled with renewed suspicion.

_By all means_, Rufus thought acidly. _Flounce in at insane hours and disturb my work as you will_. He blinked, and the world came slowly back into focus, revealing one ex-Soldier standing tall before his desk, his face unreadable in the shadows. Like one of those nameless, faceless internal auditors that his father had sent to plague each department—

_Auditors._

A stray thought flashed into the beginnings of an idea.

"Actually, I would like you to do that," he said.

Strife's sudden shift betrayed his surprise. "What?"

Rufus shrugged, wincing as stiff shoulder muscles protested. "This office has the entirety of Shinra Inc's files. You're welcomed to inspect them whenever you wish."

"This is a trick, isn't it?"

"Public accountability. Obviously, the first step to gaining the people's trust is transparency. Obviously, it would be terribly disruptive to allow any idle passerby to wander in and rummage through my files, but if you, a hero of the Planet and the _de facto_ leader of Avalanche took upon yourself the role and responsibility of keeping this company in check, I'm certain that most everyone would be quite happy with that arrangement."

"You want _me_ to…"

Rufus resisted an urge to throw a file at him. "…audit our files, yes. Naturally, I'd request that you keep our exact plans and business arrangements in confidence. For the other parties' sake as well, you understand."

"I'm not qualified," Strife mumbled.

Rufus had found the back up batteries in the meantime, slotting one into the lamp. Both of them blinked as the desk was flooded with light again.

"You hardly need a degree in accounting for this. You're simply interested in knowing whether Shinra is up to something or not. Oh, if you must. You could ask Tuesti along."

"Reeve?"

"Yes."

Strife had taken that as an open invitation to start flipping through the files piled on the corner of the desk. Obviously, the man thought that if he turned his back, the totally untrustworthy President would remove all the important bits and manipulate all the data and start fooling the world all over again.

Rufus leaned back, closing his eyes and listening to Strife read his way through the mountains of paperwork on his desk. _Lying only works once._ _Or twice. Or when you have something more than invalid President and a bare handful of loyal staffers to back it up. No, Strife. You should have realized merely offering to let you inspect our files shows that we have nothing to hide…_

-

He might have drifted off for a moment. He wasn't sure. All he knew was that he blinked awake to the sound of flipping paper. Strife had, apparently, disappeared.

Tseng would have _nagged_. After flipping out. Falling asleep in the presence of someone who, at last count, might have been an enemy. Or an executioner. No amount of fatigue was excusable for that.

A quick peep over the other edge of the desk revealed one blond ex-Soldier seated on the floor, having apparently abandoned the chair for more working space. Files and papers were strewn around him in an every increasing circle, and his face was the very picture of intense concentration.

Rufus glanced at the clock. A quarter past four. _Fantastic._

"I do hope," he said at length, "That you know how to put all of that back together again."

Strife _jumped_, the experience of surprise on his face almost comical. He glanced at the paper trail, glanced back at Rufus, glanced back at the file he was currently massacring, then said, almost plaintively, "I thought you were sleeping."

Rufus folded his arms across the desk and nearly smiled. "You could come back another time, you know. You don't have to read everything at one shot. Besides," he glanced at the clock again, "Having read for approximately four hours straight, I doubt you're processing anything any more."

Strife tried unsuccessfully to hide a yawn behind a fist. The Buster Sword had been kicked to one side and was currently serving as a giant paperweight. Rufus idly wondered how heavy it actually was. Certainly, Strife wielded it like it was weightless.

"Do as you will," Rufus said, when Strife continued to pause in indecision. He paused to scrub his hand across his eyes again. "Just know that I'm placing a great deal of trust in you. Most of these are files that would not even pass into the hands of my senior executives."

"I don't abuse people's trust," Strife snorted.

"See that you don't. I'm going to bed."

-

He didn't breathe out until the door of the bedroom clicked shut behind him. Leaving Strife like that, with the liberty to take any of those files and leave, or worse, change vital data… that was a risk, a _huge_ risk that set every nerve afire. Rufus _hated_ risks with a passion, and had tried to dance around them as much as he could in his younger days. In his naiveté, he had genuinely thought that ruling the world with an iron fist was the way to go – it kept everything neat, predictable, and therefore controllable.

Avalanche had come like… well, an _Avalanche_, and put an end to all of that.

_Even if I'd covertly sponsored them to engineer the downfall of the old man…_

He abandoned the wheelchair to limp to his bed, one hand resting against the wall for support. Walking was getting easier. Albeit slowly. Day by painful day. And even Tseng had started express hope that one day he'd be rid of the hated wheelchair entirely. But for now, emphasizing weakness as yet another way to draw a contrast between the new Shinra Inc and the old one was a fairly effective campaign ploy. And even Strife would hesitate a little before striking down a helpless enemy. Hesitate long enough to listen, at least. And that was good enough.

He literally collapsed into bed, shoulder hitting the mattress with enough momentum to allow him to hoist his legs over the edge. And lay there, staring up at the ceiling. Plans and designs danced briefly through his mind, as he tried to select a problem to mull over.

_Need to send someone to check up on Corel, see what the sentiment there is like now… and that pompous fool Dio has been whining about his precious Golden Saucer again… have to find that surveyors' report as to the situation of the oil refinery… need to remind engineering that there's nowhere enough cooling for the natural gas plant… _

But the schematics for the power plant were dissolving before his mind's eye, black lines turning to gold and the fine strands of gravity defying hair. And the scribble handwritten notes by the side were lengthening to form the lines of a profile in a dark room, and a pair of glowing mako eyes.

**To be continued**


	2. Chapter 2

**Empire  
**By Elvaron (sf)

An Advent Children fanfiction  
Post-AC, barreling down the road to the reconstruction of Shinra Company. A Hero, A President, a new world, and all that stands in between.

Rating PG-13 - Status: In progress - Warnings: None  
Pairings: Tseng/Rufus, Rude/Reno, more to be announced

**II**

Afternoon found Cloud back at Healin Lodge, the whine of his motorcycle's engine dying down as he braked to a halt and pulled the keys from the ignition. Out of sheer force of habit, he slapped the button that sent two sword-filled racks flying open like a pair of metallic wings on either side. But when his hand brushed the hilt of the Buster Sword, he paused, and frowned.

When he knocked on the door, it was without his blade.

"Enter," Rufus Shinra called.

Cloud shoved the door open. The President was leaning over his desk, furiously writing in the margins of some report, bangs obscuring his eyes.

"Cloud," Rufus greeted him, without looking up. "The documents you were looking over last night are over by the chair. I haven't touched them."

He responded with a noncommittal sound of acknowledgement. The afternoon sunlight streaming in through the window reflected off Rufus' immaculate white suit and glinted off the metal clasps on the bandage wrapped around his throat, drawing Cloud's attention to the latter.

_Surely he was cured of Geostigma?_

"There's tea in the pantry. Help yourself." Rufus tossed aside a document to make way for another.

"Tea?" Cloud said. "Isn't that a luxury?"

Rufus finally looked up, a dry smirk on his face. "It's that foul herbal concoction from Wutai that Tseng has been forcing down my throat. You're welcomed to it. I'm afraid we are short on _real_ tea."

"Thank you, but I'll pass," Cloud replied.

"Pity." Rufus shrugged, and laid his pen down. "How far along are you?"

"Far enough," Cloud replied, settling into the chair with a sigh, and pulling a file from the stack.

"Is that so?"

Cloud gestured at the stacks. "You know as well as I do just how many files there are here…"

"Actually, I have a job offer," Rufus said.

He blinked. "Apart from reading this stuff, you mean?"

"The last time, you told me you were a courier. I have a need for several important documents to be delivered. I'd pay you, of course." Rufus tapped a stack of brown envelopes. "All of them are locations in Midgar. Normally, I'd ask one of the Turks to send them, but they aren't around at the moment…"

Well, what was there to lose? He _did_ have to make a living, after all, and he wasn't going to do that just by sitting on the floor of Rufus Shinra's office, reading his way through piles of stuff, looking out for … goodness knew what.

"I'll take them."

"Thank you." Rufus smiled.

-

"We're in Costa De Sol, chief." Reno's distinctive drawl sounded distinctly pleased.

"Just what _are_ you doing in Costa De Sol?" Rufus sighed.

"Oh, checking out the chicks, checking out the beach, getting a tan. The usual."

"I sent you to _Nibelhelm._"

"Can't blame a guy for taking a well deserved vacation, right? We've been working nonstop since the Kadaj bunch turned up! Or before, that, even."

"Where is Rude?" Rufus asked, cradling the PHS between his shoulder and his cheek as he wrote. Oh, for the Shinra speaker phones of yore…

"On the beach. Getting a tan." He could almost _feel_ Reno's smirk radiating through the line.

"Since you're already on that continent, I want both of you to head up to Corel. Radio me back when you're there."

"Awww _chief_? That little dirt hole? Or are we getting a company sponsored vacation to the Golden Saucer?"

Rufus grinned humorlessly. "Actually, you are. I want you to pay a visit to Dio."

"What for?" Reno's tone was suddenly sharper, more attentive, his Turk instincts triggered.

"Like I said. Radio me back when you get there." He killed the line.

-

The sun was setting by the time he got back. The pollution in the air did guarantee pretty sunsets here on the outskirts of Midgar, and Cloud paused to admire the streaks of pink and gold across the sky. From here, Midgar looked almost peaceful, flocks of birds rising from the wreckage to wing off for the night. It was easy to forget the homeless and the destitute, the low laid lower by Meteor. Geostigma was gone, by Aerith's healing rain could not help to alleviate the poverty and starvation that was the lot of the refugees of Midgar. And for all that Avalanche had fought to free them from the clutches of Shinra, they were helpless to do anything for them in the aftermath.

Loathe as he was to admit it, Rufus Shinra was indeed in a better position to rebuild the world than they were. In fact, what _were_ the former members of Avalanche doing, besides getting on with their lives?

He shook his head ruefully. _I don't save anyone. I can't save anyone. _

Tifa had packed dinner for him. He opened the packet now, perched on the ledge admiring the sunset, and munched on the sandwich within with an air of distraction. Idly, he wondered what Rufus ate for dinner, especially when he didn't have the Turks around to prepare it for him. Somehow, he couldn't imagine the President of Shinra Inc cooking his own food. He wondered if Rufus even ate. He wouldn't put it past the man to forget entirely.

He wondered why he was thinking of Rufus, bent over his work, sunlight glinting off his hair.

The birds from Midgar squawked as they winged overhead, jarring him out of his thoughts. The sandwich was long gone.

"Back to work," he announced, more for his own benefit than anyone else's.

-

Healin Lodge was drench in complete darkness when he neared it. Cloud frowned; the lights were solar powered and occasionally the solar batteries did not last the night, but it was still early. Just after sunset, in fact. It was highly unlikely that Rufus would have turned in for the night already, but from what he could see, even the small light in the office was not lit.

Whatever it was, he contemplated returning home, and catching an early night. Rufus' '_whenever you wish_' presumably did not extend to all hours of the day, no matter how late he had stayed the night before. The files could wait. If Rufus had wanted to modify them, he'd have done it by now, and it was true that he hadn't found anything even remotely suspicious in the ones he had flicked through. If there was something afoot, it was definitely a lot more subtle, and the President was hardly likely to leave it on his desk for all to see—

--an oddly familiar sound echoed through the night, and Cloud tensed instinctively.

The sound exploded into the silent air again, right behind him. Years of ingrained reflexes kicked in as he flung himself off the bike and dived for cover, before the gunshots – for that was what they had been – began ringing in earnest.

He didn't have his sword. Didn't have time to get it before the glass of the nearest window shattered outwards. Cloud ducked out of the way again, attempting to dart towards the bike and the swords stored within. A yell sounded from within the house, followed by a short, sharp scream.

_Rufus!_

A bullet winged him in the arm as he reached the bike – some sniper hiding out in the bushes and obviously taking him as the enemy. He whirled before he even thought about it, the fire materia on his armlet already flaring into action. One of the bushes burst into flames, and the ensuing screams told Cloud that he had hit his target. The crossfire over his head faltered, as he grabbed the Buster Sword from the bike, and dashed towards the door.

The house fell eerily silent a second or so before he burst in through the main door. The living area was a mess, the windows all smashed and the walls riddled with bullet holes. The door to the office was ajar, and as he inched his way into the room, Buster Sword held protectively in front of him, he could see that it was deserted. Papers were everywhere, the files obviously rifled through.

He tried the bedroom next. The door was jammed; he slammed his shoulder against it repeatedly. When it refused to yield, he hefted the sword and took out the hinges with a quick swipe.

A shove was all it took to send the door crashing to the floor. The smell of gunpowder and blood hit him first, reminding him all too sharply of numerous battles long past. The room was a small one, and most of the floor space was taken up by two shapes sprawled across it. Both were dressed completely in black, helmeted, and pools of blood were starting to collect beneath each.

_Sephiroth_, his mind supplied immediately and unhelpfully, remembering another night and the streaks of blood splashed across the hallways of the Shinra Headquarters.

But Sephiroth would never use a gun.

And where was—

Something tackled him from the side, shoving him over onto the ground. A blade whipped through the space where his head had been, but he hardly saw it, whipping the edge of the Buster Sword up, the point leveled at his assailant's throat—

The edge caught on fabric and sheered through, and Cloud caught side of a pair of furious blue eyes before Rufus jerked backwards, the bandage around his neck unwinding.

"Behind you!" Rufus snapped, punctuating his warning with two shots from his sidearm. There was a curse and the sound of someone staggering back, then Cloud was on his feet, deftly blocking the expected return fire with the blade of his sword. Another swipe and half a gun barrel clattered to the ground, and the attacker made to bolt.

"Don't kill him!" Rufus ordered, and Cloud paused for a one incredulous millisecond to process the fact that he was taking orders from Shinra Inc, before he clamped down on the killing swipe and reverse his sword instead, bringing the hilt crashing down on the man's head. Behind him, Rufus fired at a shape outside the windows. Cloud made to follow, when Rufus' hand clamped down on his elbow. Shakily, the President pushed himself to his feet. "Don't bother."

"What?"

"Elena and Tseng are on the perimeter. They'll get them. Better to wait and see if any more try to attack."

Cloud stared at him, noticing for the first time that he had lost his white jacket, which left him with… oh, just three layers, a black vest over a white shirt over another black shirt. He gripped a gun in his right hand – not the sawn off shotgun – but something smaller and obviously custom made for concealed carry. Stumbling back to lean against the wall, the President ejected the spent magazine and pulled another from somewhere on his person, reloading the gun with an efficiency that spoke of long practice. He glanced over and frowned. "What?"

"Nothing." Cloud tore his gaze away from Rufus' neck. The bandage had concealed neither an open wound nor lingering traces of Geostigma, but a long, slightly ragged scar that ran across his throat to disappear somewhere into his shirt collar. "What gave you that scar?" he asked, unable to help himself.

Rufus' free hand flew to his neck, his eyes widening for a moment in undisguised shock. He looked away sharply, hitching his collar up in a vain attempt to hide the mark. "Some fight in the past." His cultured tone was unusually abrupt.

"Is that why you always wore turtlenecks?" Cloud pressed.

"We haven't secured the area yet," Rufus said, ignoring the question entirely. "Stay alert."

-

They waited, Rufus seated on the floor in a corner between a bookshelf and the door, while Cloud kept watch, leaning against the wall next to the window. With nothing to pass the time, the wait seemed interminable. Cloud attended to the bullet wound on his arm – the shot had only scraped him, nothing serious. The President, however, had one high in the left shoulder, the bullet still lodged in the bone. They would need surgery to get it out; using a Restore materia would only serve to seal the bullet in.

When Rufus' PHS buzzed, Cloud nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Understood," Rufus said. He paused, and a scowl flashed briefly across his face. "_Understood_. Yes, slightly. No, nothing serious. And Strife is here. What? Yes. Very well." He snapped the PHS shut, one handed, and stuffed it into a pocket. "They're headed back."

"Ah," Cloud said. "Who were the attackers?"

"Jenova knows." Rufus shrugged, and winced. "When our captive comes round, we'll find out."

"They were trying to assassinate you, weren't they?"

"A surprising number of people are. You were ready to do so, just yesterday."

"I was here to stop you. Not to kill you."

"Same difference." Rufus pushed himself to his feet. Glass crunched outside, signaling Tseng's arrival. The Wutainese strode in. His suit was the very image of perfection, and not a strand of his long black hair was out of place, as if he hadn't just spent the last hour dodging bullets and killing assassins. His eyes flicked to Cloud in cool acknowledgement, before he turned to Rufus. "Rufus-sama—"

"I'm fine." Rufus brushed off his concern, gesturing towards the assassin that Cloud had knocked out earlier. "Take care of him."

"Elena can handle him, sir. I'm getting you to safety and to appropriate medical care before the next attack comes."

Rufus hesitated a moment, before sweeping past Tseng and out of the room.

"Not so crippled, is he?" Cloud asked.

"He's not going far," Tseng replied coolly. "Thank you for your assistance."

Cloud inclined his head as Elena strode in, holstering a side arm. "Area's secure." She glanced curiously at Cloud. "Is he coming with us?"

"I have no orders to that effect," Tseng replied, turning to leave.

"I'm going with you," Cloud said quietly.

Tseng was too dignified to whirl, but he did turn back. "I will convey your request to the President—"

"I _am_ going with you." He wasn't sure where the words had come from or what he hoped to achieve, but they were out, and he was bound to follow them.

Tseng eyed him for a long moment. "I will consult the President," he said at last, but Cloud knew that he had won.

-

He was the last onto the 'chopper, helping Elena to load up one of the huge metal briefcases emblazoned with the Shinra logo. Tseng waited long enough for him to scramble in before taking off, leaving Elena to slam the door shut and for him to fall into an empty seat. Completely forgetting that the Buster Sword was still strapped to his back. _Ow._

In the seat opposite, Rufus cracked open an eye and raised an inquisitive eyebrow as Cloud cursed and fought himself free of the scabbard.

"Aren't you due home?" he asked eventually.

Cloud shrugged. "You haven't paid me for the deliveries."

Rufus laughed softly, a sound that made Cloud eye him in surprise. There was a first for everything, it seemed.

"Indeed. I'd forgotten. Credit or gil?"

"Gil," Cloud replied. "All the banks in Midgar are destroyed."

"That too," Rufus replied, evidently in good spirits, or faking it very well. "If you would be so kind as to wait until we've reached our destination, then. It's not too far."

**To be continued**

* * *

Hazelator dot livejournal dot com - my writing livejournal, gets updated far more often than my FFN account does and contains fictions that are not published here. 


	3. Chapter 3

III

"Sir, you shouldn't—"

"Shut up, Tseng. Now, we know that…"

Voices roused him from sleep, and Cloud rolled over to check the time. His hand encountered empty air instead of the bedside table, and he snapped awake instantly, one hand reaching for the Buster Sword. Sunlight hit him in the eyes and he blinked. _Oh._

_Junon._

"I want answers and I want them _now_." Strains of conversation could be heard from the next room, Rufus' voice raised in annoyance, and interspersed with the quieter answers of someone that Cloud couldn't quite hear.

"If necessary…" Rufus had lowered his voice, and the next words were lost. Cloud searched for his boots and started pulling them on.

"Sir, is that really necessary?" Elena said.

"If not, kill him."

Cloud froze. There was the sound of a door opening, and closing, and someone leaving down the hallway. Frowning, he shoved his foot into the boot and grabbed the Buster Sword. There was a confrontation to be had.

--

Rufus looked up when he entered. The President was propped up in bed, typing furiously on a laptop positioned across his knees. White bandages showed through the V in his shirt collar, wrapping up the shoulder wound obtained from the night before. "Good morning," Rufus said carefully, evidently uncertain of what to make of his mood.

"Who are you planning to assassinate?" Cloud demanded without preamble.

"No one." Rufus snapped the cover of the laptop shut. "I had merely ordered investigations into whoever was behind the attempt last night."

The frown on Cloud's face morphed into a full fledged scowl. "You ordered Elena to kill someone."

Rufus blinked. "Oh. That. We had a lead. I simply authorized her to use force to extract the information if necessary."

"You…" Two angry strides brought him to the side of the bed. "You haven't changed in the slightest."

Some emotion darkened Rufus' blue eyes. "Someone tried to kill me last night. I have a right to know who, or what. Preferably before—"

"—before _nothing_. You and your mafia games need to stop. People's lives are not for you to dispose of at a whim."

"Cloud—"

"You _will_ ask Elena to stand down," Cloud growled, leveling the Buster Sword at Rufus' throat... a move that caused the President jerked sharply backwards, jaw clenching sharply. Cloud had the briefest glance of something unidentifiable – _Fear, perhaps?_ – flashing across his face, before a gloved hand reached up to shove the blade out of the way.

Tseng. He hadn't noticed him, silently stationed against one wall, until then. The Turk angled the blade at the floor, turning to pin Cloud with a stare, anger boiling in his eyes.

"Kindly refrain from doing that," he said in a low voice. Cloud glanced back to Rufus, but the President wasn't looking at him. He was hunched forward, breathing raggedly, one hand clenching at the bandages around his neck.

"President," Tseng called softly, and Rufus seemed to snap back into himself, inhaling sharply, and dropping his hand back to his laptop.

"You were a SOLDIER," Rufus said, still not looking up. "You should know that there's no room for indulging compassion in war."

"You got that scar from a sword," Cloud said.

Rufus stiffened, and sat up straighter. "That… is _none of your business_. Neither are my methods of inquiry after would-be murderers."

"Or perhaps you might like to go with Elena," Tseng suggested softly as two pairs of blue eyes turned to study him. He shrugged. "Perhaps the heroes of Avalanche know methods of extracting information that we don't."

_I highly doubt it_, was the look that Rufus shot him.

"Or perhaps more humane methods," Tseng said blandly. "After all, they are the ones who liberated the world from the tyranny of Shinra."

_The explosion of the Mako reactor in Sector 5 has resulted in extensive damage to the surrounding areas…_

_I calculated the components of that bomb to the T! It wasn't supposed to cause that big an explosion! What went wrong?_

…_at least 47 people were killed and hundreds more injured, not including reactor staff…_

_That Avalanche bunch is just as bad as Shinra!_

…_President Shinra was quoted as calling it "A great tragedy", and vowing to take all measures necessary to eliminate the terrorist group Avalanche…_

Cloud shook his head sharply to drive away the ghosts of the past.

_I have sinned, _the thought sounded, unbidden.

_I can't save anyone._

He glanced briefly at Rufus, who met his gaze evenly, but said nothing. With a scowl, Cloud wrenched the Buster Sword's blade out of Tseng's grip, pivoted on a heel, and headed out of the room. His footsteps echoed angrily down the hall.

--

"The Chief sucks." Most people would probably have asked why. And considering it was Rufus Shinra he was talking about, most people would either have agreed emphatically or been utterly appalled.

As it was, Rude just gave him a curious look. Or at least, he _assumed_ it was a curious look behind those dark glasses.

"He's not answering his PHS," Reno complained, looking out over the sun-drenched beach of Costa del Sol.

"You were supposed to call him after we got to the Golden Saucer," Rude pointed out. Reno shrugged, wiggling his toes as a wave splashed over his bare feet and soaked the ends of his trousers.

"He's losing his touch. Forgot to specify a deadline. 'sides, the chopper's malfunctioning."

_Of course, that has nothing to do with the fact that you've neglected to get it fixed_, was what Rude's raised eyebrow told him.

He shrugged again, pausing to admire the plethora of chicks in their brightly colored bikinis scattered across the sand. "A feast for the eyes", some of the more seedy magazines called it.

Reno called it boring. He had seen better. He saw better every time he looked into the mirror in the morning. This lot… this lot was merely passable. And they were taking up all the available space. A small smirk spread across his features as he turned back to Rude.

"Hey, this beach is too crowded."

"We could go back to the inn," the other Turk suggested.

"But I want a tan. And you need to brush up on yours." There was a sparkle in Reno's eye as he leaned in closer to his partner and entwined his fingers in his tie. Rude simply looked vaguely amused.

"And, of course, we can't tan properly if we're all suited up…"

The beach emptied itself rather quickly after that, except for the curious and the impervious. Someone called the local police complaining about two men and grossly indecent exposure and unnatural intercourse on the beach. Reno didn't mind. The police knew better than to interfere with Turk business.

--

Gentle hands landed on his shoulders, which Rufus hadn't realized were still trembling. He forced himself to relax: taking a deep breath and exerting the iron control that he had learnt a long time ago. Tseng's thumbs moved, idly tracing circles along locked muscles just below the shoulder blades, and with another breath, Rufus could feel the tension draining out of him.

"Are you alright?" Tseng asked.

He tore his gaze from the laptop still clutched between his hands to look up. The Turk was hovering over him, concern etched in his face.

"Fine," he replied shortly, inclining his head at the doorway through which Strife had departed. "Please close the door."

Tseng did as asked, quietly, efficiently, and then returned to his side.

"That was fairly pathetic," Rufus said, running a hand through his bangs.

"It was understandable."

He shook his head. "Phobias and ghosts of the past are perhaps acceptable in people who don't have enemies. But…" his hand came down to trace the bandage around his throat, fingers unconsciously following the line of the scar concealed beneath. "…those who play mind games cannot afford such weaknesses." He sighed, mood flashing from critical to impatient to resigned. And reached up to wrap a hand around Tseng's neck. "Sit down. You're way too tall."

He could never hide anything from Tseng. Not when they were separated by all the miles between Midgar and wherever his father had chosen to exile him to, with only the static filled telephone line to connect them. He certainly couldn't hide anything from Tseng when they were this close, skin to skin, mouths crushed on each other's, or lying limbs entwined, breaths shuddering as their heart beats slowed.

So it was no surprise that Tseng sensed his unspoken apology. Perhaps tasted it in the bitterness on his tongue, or felt it in some discordant break in their rhythm. Perhaps Tseng just _knew_, in that inexplicable way of his.

"You're thinking of Strife," the Turk murmured softly into his collarbone.

He didn't try to deny it. Tseng propped himself up on his elbows, dark gaze searching his face. "May I ask why?"

Rufus looked away. "I need him on my side. _Shinra_ needs him on its side."

"And for no other reason?"

"None."

"If I may venture a blunt question…"

"You have always had that privilege."

"Do you harbor feelings for him?"

"No."

"And you would…"

The question hung in the air, poised like a double edged sword between both of them. Like a sword, perhaps, that would forever hang between them.

Rufus closed his eyes and sighed. "I would do whatever was necessary."

A hand running through his hair, and Tseng's lips brushing, feather light, across his brow. "I would not have you prostitute your honor for this."

He laughed at that, a short, bitter sound. "We are all whores, Tseng. Didn't the old man tell you that? We sell ourselves out to the highest bidder for whatever they can give us in return. Fame. Money. Influence. Power."

"For the sake of a company?"

"For the sake of the _world_," he said sharply.

He knew that Tseng didn't understand. Different backgrounds. Different cultures. Different gut level reactions, for all that they had been together for years now. For all that they shared a bed and a life. Tseng might have left Wutai, but Wutai had never quite left him; its concepts of honor and its lure of a simple life unconcerned with the outside world still buried somewhere deep within his heart. Impossible, then, for him to understand a world built around power and money and little else; impossible for him to envision, let alone comprehend, the gut level reaction to consolidate, network, interact… to draw all potential resources to oneself before they became potential enemies.

He _needed_ Strife, hero of the new world… this haunted boy who was far, far more important than he thought he was. The _world_ looked to Cloud Strife for direction and inspiration, sheep looking to their shepherd to point them in the right direction, to tell them what was good and evil… no, to wring those stupid, bigoted concepts from a world in which they did not actually exist. And if Strife declared Shinra Company to be evil and damned it to hell, then the world damned Shinra Company to hell, and Rufus Shinra with it.

And if he went down, so would Tseng, because a Turk's loyalty was absolute.

His shoulder throbbed where the assassin's bullet had found its mark.

_This is not merely a fight to rebuilt Shinra Company. This is a fight to survive._

And that much Tseng could understand. Could probably understand better than he could. Survival was paramount. Honor and love were useless luxuries. Impediments. He had abandoned those notions a long time ago.

"I'm sorry," he said again, because Tseng deserved better than this. Because, once upon a time, Rufus Shinra had had his chance, and he had blown it completely. Because Tseng, as well as Rude and Reno and Elena, had said no word of blame, merely picking up the pieces behind him and standing by his side even after his fall from grace.

"No apology necessary," Tseng murmured.

Because damned if he was going to let them down a second time.

-


	4. Chapter 4

**IV**

"Rufus is not his father, you know."

Cloud looked up at the Turk hovering over him, raising an eyebrow in silent query.

"A lot of people try to pin the blame for what Shinra's done on him," Elena explained, striding confidently to his side and seating herself on the ledge. He couldn't help but notice how she'd changed since they had first seen her: a green rookie confronting them in the Mithril Mines and leaking more information than she should have.

Or perhaps not. Till this day, he'd never found out whether that leak had been intentional or not.

But it seemed that she'd left her rookie days behind somewhere between then and now. Today, the lady that sat next to him, impeccably decked out in a close fitting suit, two pistols holstered in plain sight and other weapons doubtless concealed on her person, looked every inch the sleek and deadly killer.

"And goodness knows he tries to shoulder that blame," Elena was saying. "But at the end of the day, he wasn't responsible for dropping the plate, or bankrupting the people, or building the company that sucked the Planet dry. He never did like mako. He had a soft spot for animals, after all."

Cloud had to blink at that, but it wasn't hard to recall a certain jet black panther, faithfully standing by her master's side while Rufus sniped at him with a double barrel shotgun.

"What happened to her?"

"Who?"

"Dark Nation."

"I'm… not sure. She survived the fight with you, thanks to prompt medical attention and all the resources of the science department that Rufus could bring to bear. He was quite distraught, you know. He was far more worried about her than he was for himself. I hear she died in Weapon's blast." Elena paused, tapping a finger thoughtfully against the side of her chin. "It's possible that the reason he survived was thanks to Dark Nation's shielding magic…"

They said that animals could tell if a person was good or bad. Cloud himself didn't quite buy into that, but it was possible that Rufus had something to command such loyalty.

"Are you saying that Rufus would have shut down all the mako reactors?"

"Maybe. He mentioned it once or twice, but it simply wasn't feasible. Largely, I think he saw them as a necessary evil." Something that might have been sadness flashed briefly across the Turk's face, and she lowered her chin to her knees as she drew her legs in. "Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if he'd taken over at a time when things weren't all going wrong." She glanced over at him. "That's why we still follow him, you know. It's not for the money or anything, and at the end of the day, we're still human. We wouldn't follow someone if he were as evil as people make him out to be."

Cloud stared moodily off into the distance.

"He has a plan. A good plan. And the resources to make it happen. He just needs people to help him."

"I…" he found himself shaking his head. "I hear what you're saying. But it's just hard to gel with what we saw of him. The way he treated Tifa. His inauguration speech."

"I won't presume to say that he didn't mean it, or that he was just trying to scare you… but I can testify that he treated us and the other Shinra employees well. He was strict, yes, but he recognized and rewarded good work as well. And he never acted without good cause. Otherwise he'd probably have fired Heidegger a long time ago." A small smile twitched at the corners of her mouth. "And face it, Cloud. There's no way that Shinra Company will ever regain the status it used to have. No one would allow it. Ruling by fear or force simply isn't an option any more."

She looked over, and this time the sadness continued to linger in her eyes, even as the smile grew to something tentative and warm. "He's only human. He's made mistakes – but fewer than what people would pin on him. And he's lost almost everything. …Can't you forgive him?"

The wind rustled quietly through the long blades of grass behind them. There were no animals here, on this cliff top overlooking the harbour. No insects, no birds, no chirps or whistles to break the nearly silent air. Just the sun shining down from the blue sky overhead, the sea of grass behind, and the peaceful city of Junon below.

"I … could," he said slowly, and it was remarkable how hard it was to say those words. "Shinra … was a lot more than just one man, even if he was – is – the President." He sighed, closing his eyes briefly. "I can forgive him, but he needs to give me reasons to trust him."

Elena was silent, but he could sense that she was smiling.

"Anyway," he said at last, when minutes passed without a word. "Aren't you supposed to be on a mission?"

"In good time. Do you want to join me? Tseng radioed to say that you would be coming along."

He blinked, noticing that she had stood, and was waiting for him, one gloved hand resting lightly on a black clad hip, the other extended towards him. "I'll go with you," he mumbled, grasping the proffered hand and allowing himself to be pulled up.

It was a house, one of those numerous pre-fabricated ones that had sprung up on the outskirts of towns everywhere. Here in Junon, they were military issue, used to house those rendered homeless by the Weapons' attacks, as well as the steady stream of refugees from Midgar.

It looked distressingly like the Slums.

Instincts he had thought forgotten – buried somewhere in the past with Zack, or released gently into the cold waters of the pool before the Forgotten City perhaps – slid back with every footstep he took after Elena. You walked like _this_, so as not to call hordes of monsters down on your head – not that you have anything to fear, you're a SOLDIER after all

_--no I'm not—_

But having to battle them off would just waste valuable time. So you have to slip along, all quiet like, but you have to walk with confidence, understand, make it seem like you're there and you own the place and you belong. Blend in. Nevermind that you have a weapon almost longer than you are tall strapped to your back. You have the uniform. If you have the _walk_ as well, no one's going to ask questions.

…They know better than to ask, anyway. Heh.

"We're here," Elena murmured, pausing at the corner, careful to stay out of sight. The Buster Sword might have attracted attention, but the black Turk's suit? Would have stood out like a flashing beacon in this part of town.

"Which one is it?" Cloud asked.

"Number 18, the one just across the street." Elena nodded in the direction of a house, indistinguishable from all the other houses.

"Do we just go and knock? Or do we do the break and entering thing?"

Elena looked thoughtful as she survived the target. "If I were on my own, I'd break and enter. And I rather think I'll do that anyway. But you go round to the front door and knock. I'll keep an eye on the back in case he tries to run."

He started to acknowledge, but she had already gone, slipping away like a shadow. Shrugging, he squared his shoulders and stepped towards the door.

No one answered his frantic knocking, of course, although several neighbors poked their heads out of their windows to glare.

"He's not home, is he?" Cloud asked.

No one answered, and he shrugged, turning his attention back to the door, raising his hand to knock again—

"—you're _Cloud Strife_, aren't you?" someone exclaimed.

He glanced up in surprise then, as the rest of the street broke into choruses of agreement and a gaggle of teenaged girls on the sidewalk started squealing spontaneously.

"Oh goodness. _Stay there_, man, I need your autograph!" someone called and disappeared from his window. There was a series of thumps as someone clattered down the stairs, drowned out by all the other thumps as doors slammed, and people turned out to gawk.

"What…" he stared, flabbergasted, at the way the street filled up abruptly, people hovering in a cautious circle around him, trying to get close to him, but none of them quite daring to encroach. "I…" he found himself retreating against the door of the house, hands held up defensively. "I'm terribly sorry, but I'm busy at the moment… could I get back to all of you?"

"Awww, whaddya want with _him_ anyway?" one of the teenaged girls called out. "He's just a crazy guy who stays at home all the time and doesn't talk to anyone…"

And with that bold shout, the rest of the voices rose again into a deafening babble, each demanding his attention, each plying him with questions, more than he could ever hope to keep track of. So much for making a quiet entry…

"I can't answer your questions if you're all talking at the same time—"

"CLOUD!"

The door slammed open behind him, knocking him over. Elena came bolting out and tripped over him.

"Elena, what—"

"_Stay down!_" Elena yelled. "It's going to—"

The rest of her words were drowned out by the explosion that tore through the house. He cringed at the blast, ears screaming in protest, eyes squeezed shut, bracing himself for the pain.

The blast ripped into the barrier that Elena had set up around them, and tore straight through.

It was the beeping that woke him up again, and he floated for a while in that space between consciousness and unconsciousness, wondering how something so quiet could yet be so loud. And so persistent.

Then sensation washed over him – the glare as his eyelids cracked open, the warm tingling of wounds tended to with materia, the ache of abuse muscles.

_Been working out too hard… wonder what I was doing…_

"Is he awake?"

"Seems that way, sir.'

There was something familiar about those voices, one male and one female. But they weren't Tifa and Barret, or Aeris and Zack, and—

--he shot awake then, practically bolting upright, glancing frantically around.

"I see. He is awake." Gold and white moved in the corner of his vision, and he turned to see Rufus seated by his side, a contemplative look upon his face.

"Told you, sir."

The other voice had to be Elena's, then, and he confirmed it a moment later when his eyes found the other bed in the room. Elena waved weakly at him, venturing a smile.

He didn't return it.

"How… what happened?"

"It was a trap," Rufus replied. "He rigged his house to blow."

He could remember it now – the blast, the explosion, the screams that reached dimly through the ringing in his ears, his own voice yelling, inaudible, telling them to run, to get out of the way, the heat, the pain, the searing supernova that engulfed his world…

His fists had clenched, and his breathing was ragged in his ears. "How many? How many people died?"

Rufus was silent, and Cloud turned to glare at him. "Don't even think of avoiding that question!"

Rufus' eyes flickered shut briefly as he heaved a sigh. "Twenty three dead. The total injuries count isn't in yet, although preliminary reports put it somewhere near eighty. Bear in mind that the blast was large enough to decimate the area anyway—"

"—not if I hadn't been there," Cloud found himself saying. "If they hadn't been crowding around me… they'd have been in their houses and they would have been fine…"

"The blast was large enough to level the houses in the immediate surroundings, Cloud," Elena said. "It's not your fault."

He squeezed his eyes shut. "Yes it is. I shouldn't have gone. I should never have put them into this kind of danger."

"You could hardly have predicted it, Strife," Rufus said.

He was shaking violently, shivers wracking his frame. "How did I survive?"

"I had a barrier up…"

"Strife, it is _not your fault_."

"I… don't care about whose fault it is. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been there." He tugged away the covers, flinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "I'm going home."

He thought he heard Rufus sigh, but he didn't care any more. Couldn't care any more. He didn't want to be here, he didn't want anything more to do with Shinra, or the world. He just wanted to get away, as far away as Fenrir could take him. Maybe somewhere out there, upon a lonely road with just the plains for miles around, he'd be able to calm the raging _hurt_ inside of him.

He fumbled for the Buster Sword, found it resting against the foot of the bed, and half stumbled, half walked to the door, his mind a whirling mass of confused emotions. His hand was shaking as he twisted the doorknob and yanked the door open, his nerves afire as he stepped through—

--and promptly slammed into someone.

"I—Cloud!"

Cloud glanced up from where he had lost his balance and sprawled untidily onto the floor. Reeve stood over him, a surprised and worried expression on his face.

"What are you doing here?" they asked at the same time.

"I…" Reeve began

"Never mind." Cloud shoved himself off the floor and picked up the Buster Sword from where he had dropped it. "I was just leaving anyway."

"Cloud." Reeve caught him by the shoulder as he attempted to push past. "I was here to talk to Rufus, but it's good that you're here too. I wanted to—"

Cloud eyed him wearily. "Reeve, I just want to go home."

"It's not going to take long. Please, just stay and listen." He eyed him critically. "And you look terrible. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Just…" he shrugged. "What were you here to talk about?"

"Shinra, actually." He turned. "Hello Rufus, Elena. It's been a while."

Rufus turned his wheelchair to face him, regarding him coolly. "It has, indeed. How did you find us here?"

"Cloud sent a message a day or so back, actually. Said that you were rebuilding Shinra Company that you'd asked him to audit your files. And that you'd extended the invitation to me."

"Ah, yes. So I had."

"Just what are you planning?"

"On repaying the debt that Shinra owes to world." Rufus smiled, very slightly. "The one you were always going on about."

"And you're going to rebuild the Company to do that?"

Rufus' eyes flicked to Cloud. "I've already been over my reasons in detail with Strife. He seemed pretty satisfied with them. You can take it up with him."

Reeve released Cloud's shoulder to walk over to Rufus' wheelchair. Cloud sighed and turned, leaning against the wall and settling in to watch.

"If you want to repay the debt that Shinra owes to the world, there are better avenues than rebuilding the Company."

"Are you afraid of something?" Rufus queried quietly. "Some sort of curse, perhaps? That, despite my intentions to the contrary, Shinra Company will rise up to become the monster that it once was?"

Reeve met his gaze steadily. "I know Shinra. I know _you_. …Forgive me for speaking frankly, but… the world doesn't need an autocracy."

"I'm trying to build a company, not take over the world. At some point in time, the world needs service providers, after all." Rufus' smile was brittle. "You say you know me. And maybe you did. Or maybe you didn't. How long was I President? A handful of weeks. Nothing more. Not even enough time to get the new nameplate up on the door, if I recall."

Reeve sighed. "You still play with words, Rufus."

"Surely you didn't come here expecting me to silently acquiesce to everything you wanted to propose." He glanced off to the side. "Please. Take a seat. Or shall we move this to my office?"

Reeve pulled up the indicated chair and sat, assuming an earnest expression. "It won't take long. I just wanted to ask you to work with us. The World Restoration Order, that is. If you're as keen on repaying Shinra's debt as you say you are, then the WRO is surely the best avenue for that."

"The world doesn't need an autocracy," Rufus said dryly.

Reeve glanced at Cloud, who hadn't moved throughout the entire exchange, as if asking him for assistance. Cloud returned an expressionless stare.

"The WRO's not an autocracy. We're—"

"—democratically elected?"

"No…"

"Countered by political checks and balances?"

"Well, of course not…"

"Judicial ones?"

"You know as well as I that there's no court of law…"

Rufus spread his hands, but where Cloud had expected a snide comment, the President simply remained silent. Letting the point speak for itself.

Reeve sighed. "We don't have political power. We're simply going to assist with the reconstruction of areas decimated by Meteor, provide social support for those who can't support themselves economically, help them to establish self government and…"

"…and what do you need me in the way for? Face it, Reeve. The moment I step into that boardroom of yours, everything is going to turn political very, very quickly. I'm afraid I'd be far more of a hindrance than a help."

"What _do_ you mean?" Reeve said, frowning.

"Once an engineer, always an engineer," Rufus murmured. "Just about everyone has pre-formulated impressions of Shinra Company. You do. Strife does. The average man in the street does. Some people never want to hear the name ever again. Some people would pay good money to see the Company standing on its feet once more. Some people want to ride on our coattails to power." He drummed his fingers on the armrest of his wheelchair. "I received countless offers of assistance from numerous parties, if only they would be offered a seat on the Board of Directors."

"And what did you do with them?"

"My shredder has been extremely busy."

Reeve chuckled, a sound that broke the rising tension in the room. Cloud felt himself breathe out, and allowed himself to shift slightly, moving his weight to the other foot. He caught Elena's eye then, and the Turk mouthed _Bureaucrats _at him. Despite his somber mood, it brought a small smile to his face.

"Still not interested in money, are you?" Reeve canted his head slightly. "You _are_ strange. You claim to be a businessman, but you're not interested in money. If so, then the only reason you're building the Company must be for… power. Influence."

Rufus leaned back. "_Honestly_, you. If you really want a shopping list of my motives… While the WRO is concerned with keeping people fed and housed right now, Shinra's concerned with making sure that they have warm houses come winter and a future to look forward to once the immediate crisis is past. I get a sense of personal satisfaction of doing what people are terming the impossible. I still have paychecks I have to sign, and bankrupt Turks make for whiny Turks." He ticked points off his fingers as he talked, and just then, Cloud noticed that he sounded more like the twenty three year old he was than the jaded ex-de facto leader of the world.

_Plans. Hopes and dreams._ Those he could understand. Could recall a sunny day under a clear blue sky, with wind whipping through his hair. Could recall a voice, hauntingly familiar and greatly missed, speculating about the future, about jobs, about all the things he – _they_ – would do.

_I know, I'm going to become a mercenary!_

Not for the first time, he wished that he had been able to look up, to smile back, to tell the older man that he was game for it, and wouldn't we just rock at the job, you and I…

_Zack._

_What if…_

And yet, if he'd gone with Zack, he'd never have wound up at that train station, never have met Tifa again, never have joined Avalanche…

And if they had not battled Sephiroth, all seven of them, perhaps he wouldn't have been standing here today.

"I see you've made up your mind," Reeve said, jolting him out of the contemplative daze he had fallen into. He glanced up, but the WRO leader was still talking with Rufus.

Rufus ducked his head briefly. "Believe me when I say that you don't need the complications of Shinra Company being part of the WRO. People might well start accusing _you_ of being an autocracy and attempting to take over the world in a new guise." His gaze was sharp, piercing, and entirely too knowledgeable, and Cloud was acutely grateful that it wasn't direct at him.

"Remember," Rufus said, "that you were once a part of Shinra Company as well."

And unspoken were the words: _The blood on our hands… is on yours as well._

"I tried my best," Reeve said stiffly.

"We all did."

"You…"

"I was in _Junon_ for the most part," Rufus said sharply. "With the communications links mysteriously and _conveniently_ down for weeks on end. Kindly remember that fact."

Reeve sighed, and glanced away. "I'm sorry. It's just that… we need all the help we can get."

"Tell me what you need. I'll see if we can lend you any assistance. But leave me to decide whether it goes on or off the record."

Reeve's gaze turned to him then, and Cloud raised a querying eyebrow.

"I didn't forget about you, Cloud," Reeve said. "And I wanted to extend my request to you. Would you like to join the WRO?"

He pushed himself away from the wall, his eyes narrowed. "There isn't much that one person can do. I don't have the money, the equipment… or anything. You don't need a mercenary. You need people like him," he nodded curtly at Rufus, "who have the knowledge and the expertise to run and manage things." He shrugged. "I'm just a courier. Call me if you have any packages to deliver."

"Cloud, you're an influential—"

_Biting heat of the flames, screams that reached to the core of his soul and dug into it like a million shards of glass…_

"I don't want _anything_ to do with anything. With Shinra. With the WRO. With saving the world or rebuilding it or whatever." The words spilled out, seemingly of their own volition, harsh enough to make Reeve flinch. He choked the rest of the tirade back with an effort. "I … just want to go home."

His gaze flicked across the room, pausing briefly on Rufus. And stopped in surprise. The President was smiling, a small, sad smile, almost wistful: a gesture so _foreign_, so unexpected, that Cloud found himself staring.

"We _need_ you, Cloud," Reeve said. "I know you've had a rough few weeks, but surely you'll think about it? Here, you have my number. Call me if you change your mind. We're getting Barret in on it, and Nanaki, and—"

Cloud shook his head, glancing down at his boots.

"It's your choice, of course." It was Rufus' voice that reached him. "And I'm sorry things turned out the way they did. But… Strife… Cloud… you saved the world. I'm afraid it's here to stay now. You'll have to face it again one day."

"That's all you want me for, isn't it?" he asked dully. He should have been angry, a little part of his mind told him. He should have yelled at them: _all you want me to do is to put my name, my face, on your projects, so that people will fall brainlessly in line… it's not me you want. It's the Guy Who Saved the World. What about Barret, then? Or Tifa? They were the ones who got Avalanche started. They're the ones you should be crediting, not me. I was just another tagalong, someone in the right place at the right time…_

But the words just made him tired, falling on him like gray, dreary rain that soaked through his clothes and dragged him down. He didn't even have the energy to be vehement.

"Please—" a voice called, as if from a great distance.

"Let him be, Reeve," another voice said. "Strife, we brought your bike from Healin. It's parked out in front. The keys are in your room."

He wasn't sure if he called an acknowledgement or not, as he turned and left the room.

* * *

_**To be continued**_  



	5. Chapter 5

**V**

"It looks…"

"Just like the way it's always looked."

Reno glanced at his partner as they paused before the entrance of the Golden Saucer. The ropeway looked a little more rusty, the streams of people wandering through the doors a little thinner, but otherwise, this was the good ol' Golden Saucer they'd always known.

"Looks like the Chief was wrong on this one," Reno said, tapping his foot.

Rude shrugged. "Since when was trouble obvious at first glance?"

Reno snickered and struck a pose. "Since us, of course. What're we supposed to do exactly, anyway?"

"Contact Dio. There was a shipment of materia and weapons that went missing while passing through here on its way to Junon."

"And if Dio got his grubby hands on it, don't you think he's the worst person to ask?"

Rude shrugged.

"I suggest we do a bit of good old fashioned snooping around before we go contact that fellow. Who knows, we may find the shipment sitting in his basement, eh?"

'Snooping around', Reno decided, after five hours of crawling through the Golden Saucer Corel Prison and interrogating everyone in sight, wasn't the brightest idea he'd ever had. Clearly, if the shipment had ever passed through the Golden Saucer, it hadn't passed through places where the average person could see it.

_Duh_, he thought. _Big trucks come into this place all the time and leave all the time. No one's going to notice anything out of the ordinary._

He leaned back as Rude made 'inquiries' of the Golden Saucer staff. The man on the right was going to piss his pants, Reno noted. Rude seemed to have that sort of effect on people, and he didn't even need to say a lot. Funny, because Reno always seemed to have to say plenty before anyone would tell him what he wanted.

_Nothing_, Rude indicated, with a shake of his head as he came walking back. Reno ground out his cigarette, sighing quietly under his breath. "Time for plan B, then."

"We have a plan B?"

"Nope."

Generally, plan B involved busting out the big guns and blowing everything to smithereens. Generally. Nevermind that Rufus had spent a lot of time reinforcing the concept of discretion being the better part of valour to them.

The Chief didn't get it, sometimes. You had to blow up the nest to get the vipers out.

Back in HQ, Elena would be busy running the decrypters on the Saucer's radio frequencies and would update them when she was done. Those damned frequencies had thus far proven remarkably resilient to cracking. Either that or things had really gone downhill since Weapon. Possibly both. Either way, it did seem as if there was nothing they could do at the moment.

"What do you think?" Reno asked, as they wandered back to their hotel.

Rude shrugged. "I think it's a miss."

Reno glanced at him. "You sure."

"Fairly."

A cigarette appeared between Reno's fingers as if by magic, as he stuck it into the corner of his mouth and gnawed gently on the filter. Rude's instincts were rarely wrong. It was as if the man, by speaking less, actually did see more, although Reno had tried that himself and it hadn't worked for nuts. Not at Chocobo racing, anyway. But generally, if Rude said that there was nothing, even Tseng took it to mean that trouble was really deeply buried, or they'd called a total miss on this one.

And yet, Rufus…

"Doesn't work by gut feeling," Rude said, with his uncanny way of picking up on his thoughts.

"Yeah," Reno agreed, lighting up. Rufus worked by data. By patterns. By uncanny intuition that bordered on genius, some said, but the Turks knew that it was born of long years of observation and analysis. Well, it still bordered on genius, but hey, the Chief would never rely on something as base as gut feeling.

"Tell me again what leads he gave us."

"Nothing," Rude said. "Just that the relevant shipment disappeared."

Monsters out on the plains were a possibility. The courier appropriating the shipment was a possibility. So were brigands and other people desperate to get their hands on a weapons consignment. Back in the Department's heyday, no one would have gotten away with that. Ever. But these days, all they had were their facilities at Junon, and even _Rufus_ had to work with one computer instead of four. Awww, the sad.

"We should interrogate Dio."

"We were told not to."

"Chief's gotta stop playing these political games and still expect us to do our job," Reno scowled.

Gravel crunched underfoot as they made their way back up to the hotel. He had a feeling he knew how this job was going to turn out, and those feelings of his were rarely wrong. They'd wait for Elena to report back that she'd been unable to crack the codes, or that she'd cracked the codes and there was nothing of interest. They'd bitch to Rufus about being allowed to bust into Dio's posh suites and stick a pistol under his fat chin. They'd be overruled. They'd be ordered home and sent off chasing some other lead. Or there'd be another assassination somewhere. Or any combination of the above.

'Bad day at work' took on a whole new meaning in the Turks, sometimes.

"You have one new message. Play it now?"

"Cloud, it's Elena. How are you? Hope the accident didn't leave any lasting effects… At any rate, if you're looking for work, we have a few things we need to run from Junon to Kalm and the Edge. You can reach me at this number. Thanks, and take care!"

"Delete message without saving?"

"Message deleted."

He could delete the messages… could delete as many of them as he wanted, but it was harder to escape from the other signs of Shinra Company making, by all accounts, a fairly good comeback. Just in the distance, he could see one of those public TV screens broadcasting another interview with the man, seated behind a desk and looking immaculate in white and black as he talked about Shinra's new global policy.

"Shinra Company owes a massive debt to the world. I accept responsibility for our past actions …"

The camera cut to scenes of Shinra firing up its first wind powered facility, panning across the phalanxes of white turbines scattered across the edge of the cliffs over Junon.

"Mr President," the interviewer was saying, "Nevertheless, it is said that alternate sources of energy will never be an effective substitute for mako energy. How do you expect to address that?"

"At the moment, we are falling back on coal and oil. Minimal modification is necessary to convert the Corel and Nibelheim Reactors to run on those sources respectively. However, the Midgar reactors are of different design, and their stability is suspect. As such…"

People watched this things with varying levels of disbelief and suspicion, Cloud noticed. No one seemed willing to accept Shinra's promises. Yet Rufus was slowly winning people over. Shinra's deeds – never played up on television – were starting to speak for themselves, and the President had been sighted limping around in Corel to attend to the reactor's re-opening. Without a Turk in sight and just Reeve by his side.

_Sneaky, aren't you?_ Cloud thought. And yet he couldn't stop himself from glancing back at that screen, just as Rufus looked up from his papers.

"I'd like to thank everyone for their support. In these trying times, no contribution is too small, and we cannot stand alone…"

"Thank you, Mr President. Ladies and gentlemen, Rufus Shinra, on behalf of the new Shinra Electric Company."

Rufus smiled. And suddenly Cloud felt his breath hitch, and he was caught, drowning in blue eyes, even though he knew that Rufus wasn't looking at him, just the camera, just—

--a click, then the screen went to black.

A chill raced over his skin; one that had nothing to do with the weather.

There was always a certain amount of temptation to fling the PHS across the room after dealing with Reno.

_Always_.

_Chief, if you'd just stop being a pansy and let us crack down on real Turks style, you know, the rubber hoses and truncheons and—_

"Sir," Tseng said, as Rufus snapped the phone shut with far more force than was strictly necessary.

"_Damnit_, Tseng." He slammed the PHS down on the table, scowling at the readouts on his laptop screen. His temper flared, in a way it hadn't done in … _years_, probably. "For once in my life, I wish that _everything would stop going wrong!_"

The curse streaked across his senses, triggering red flags from years of etiquette training, and he ignored it. "I need these _assholes_ to stop killing my employees so I can help them fix their stupid miserable lives. I need these shipments to stop disappearing. I need forces, I need firepower, and I need it without making Shinra look like it's rearming!"

Somewhere in the midst of the tirade, he had shoved his chair back, and was pacing furiously in front of the window, involuntarily wincing at the stiff twinges that were the effect of staying seated too long.

"And most of all, _I need this goddamn pain to stop!_"

Tseng stopped him with a hand on his shoulder, and pulled him closer, wrapping warm arms around him. With anyone else, Rufus would have snarled, too furious to be coddled and knowing too well that it solved nothing whatsoever. But for them… they'd spent too long apart, too many years over a PHS instead of face to face, too many near death experiences marring their memories, that everything was far too precious to waste.

He leaned his head against Tseng's shoulder, breathing deeply.

"We'll earn their support soon, sir," the Turk said.

_It will all be easier if Strife would just…_

But here, now, the thought gave him a guilty twinge. The look in Strife's eyes as he walked out – _this is all you want me for, isn't it? _– it triggered something long buried and suppressed in him. The ache of a child realizing that no one loved him, and that he was nothing more than a pawn of the Company.

"_That's all you want me for, isn't it? To wave in front of the cameras?"_

Tseng must have felt the sudden tension in his shoulders, because his hands had started tracing circles on his back.

_What am I supposed to do?_ He thought, allowing the despair that had become a permanent specter lurking on the edges of conscious thought to sink its claws in. _Everything going to hell, and I don't have half… or even a quarter of the resources that I used to. Everytime I think I have it, someone comes along and blows up another Shinra center just for the hell of it. I can't use the word 'terrorist' in relation to them without triggering Sector 7 vibes. I've milked the 'please let saner heads prevail' line to death. Alternate energy sources weren't _used _for a reason – they're horrible inefficient. People look to me for some kind of miracle, and don't want to pay or trust me for it…_

"What did I do to warrant all of this?" he mumbled.

Tseng was silent, as he usually was. _No wallowing in self-pity_, the silence said. _You, of all people, cannot afford to do so_.

He raised his head, contemplating the lines of Tseng's tie and how they would just slip away if he tugged this strand at that angle… and then the button underneath, allowing the collar of the white shirt to fall away, exposing a triangle of pale skin—

--the shrill of the PHS dragged him back to duty. Rufus allowed himself one harassed sigh before detangling himself from Tseng's embrace and walking over to the desk. "Call Elena, will you?" he said, as he picked the phone up, cradling it unopened in one hand. "Tell her to stop attempting to contact Strife."

Tseng raised an eyebrow at that.

"I'm sure," Rufus told him, and flipped the phone open. "Rufus Shinra."

**05-12-14:** **Press Release 134 People Die in a Mining Accident in Corel**

An explosion in the number 7 mine shaft of the Corel mines killed 134 workers and injured 56 more. The blast, which occurred at around noon, was believed to have been caused by build up dangerous mine gases. Sensors indicate that all surviving workers have been successfully evacuated. The shaft has been closed.

Mr Barret Wallace, spokesman for Corel Town, was quoted as calling this a terrible tragedy. Mining work has been halted in all 10 shafts as safety measures are carried out.

With the closure of the mako reactor, Corel has returned to coal as its primary source of energy. This incident has prompted fire from critics of the move, who cite the pollution and the danger of mining accidents as chief reasons for retaining use of mako energy, at least until an equally clean and efficient source of energy can be found.

Methane is the principle component of mining gases, and tends to rise and stratify if not properly diffused, as it is lighter than air. Not only is it extremely combustible, when combined with coal dust, it can trigger a massive explosion. 5 such explosions have occurred in the history of the mining town, the worst of which was 24 years ago. Almost 200 people died in that blast when the entire shaft collapsed.

Shinra Electric Company, which is overseeing the conversion of the mako reactor to run on coal power, could not be reached for comment.

-

**05-12-17: Press Release Mako switchever in Edge**

As supplies of refined mako run low, Midgar and the Edge are preparing for the switchover from mako energy to alternative forms of power. Oil and natural gas will account for 56 of the present energy consumption in the cities, while it is hoped that solar power will make up for the rest. However, there is expected to be a large shortfall until the hydroelectric power plant in Junon can be completed. The plant is slated for completion last next year, and it will require another three months to run the cables across the Junon mountain range to Edge. All in all, it seems set to be a cold winter in the Edge.

Mr Reeve Tuesti, leader of the World Restoration Organization, regrets the inconvenience and encourages everyone to save power by using natural light when possible, and wood fires for central heating. According to a press statement issued at 1000 hours today, the WRO will be working together with Shinra Electric Company to issue home-use solar cells and batteries to as many households as possible.

-

"Rufus, did you hear the news?"

"What news?"

"Sudden cold spell causes multitude of deaths in the Edge... About 15 people were found frozen to death as temperatures plunged last night to an all new low of -10F… The city has been facing an energy crisis since it switched over from mako energy… something about this being the coldest winter in thirty years…"

"What do you expect me to _do_, Reeve? You know as well as I do that we've done all we can!"

"I… didn't you have emergency stockpiles of mako for—"

"—for an emergency. Not for this."

"This isn't an emergency!"

"You and I have been over this before. An emergency is another world threatening catastrophe. Or, at the very least, a massive natural disaster."

"……"

"I'm sorry."

"Well, yes, yes you're right. I just wish there was something more we could do…"

"We all do, Reeve. We all do."


End file.
